


there's an old saying about blood and water

by Nakimochiku



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: M/M, mentioned Ethan/Dorian, unrequited Ethan/Victor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-15
Updated: 2014-07-15
Packaged: 2018-02-09 00:00:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1961181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nakimochiku/pseuds/Nakimochiku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Ethan who makes them a family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	there's an old saying about blood and water

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place during episode 7

It’s Ethan who turns them into a family. Just little words, phrases. Perhaps he doesn’t notice. And if not, perhaps he doesn’t realize himself what he’s yearning for.

Victor notices.

“Uh oh,” Ethan laughs, grins wide, bumps his arm like they’ve always been friends, playmates. “Father’s angry.” And Victor blinks, because what does that make them? Brothers?

That isn’t what Victor wants. Not at all.

“You want a daughter!?” Ethan howls, ferocious and angry and so strong, hands big clubs of fists, made for breaking. “There she is!” and Sir Malcolm goes still because Ethan has just made them a family again, three strange siblings beneath the roof of a strange father, made all the more interesting by the fact that none of them had siblings before now.

In the silence Victor can hear Ethan saying “you want a son? Here I am. And another? There he is.”

“I’ll tear your throat out,” Ethan swears, and Victor shivers.

Mustn’t say that, Ethan. Mustn’t say that to father, he’ll tan your hide.

How amusing, that Ethan should make them a family, and then tear them almost immediately apart.

Later, they are sitting together in the hallway, on the stairs like children waiting and giggling for pranks to come to fruition. They aren’t giggling now. “Was she telling the truth?” Victor asks, because he can’t stop thinking about it, Ethan’s face when he’s confronted with some sin no one should know about, the sorts of sins Victor has yet to commit yet some times yearns to.

“Who?” Ethan grunts. “About what?”

“Miss—Vanessa.” They are siblings now, Ethan made them as much, he can use her first name. “What she said to you about…a beautiful boy?” he leaves it at that, and Ethan stiffens beside him, before he relaxes with a deep breath.

What a thought; Big Strong Ethan, at the mercy of a beautiful boy, waifish, feminine almost in his beauty. What a thought; Big Strong Ethan, crying out, moaning, spread out over sheets and taken. What a thought indeed; Big Strong Ethan, fucked like an animal and tamed like one too. Victor swallows thickly and chances a look at Ethan, who breathes quietly.

“She’s not herself.” He says, and that isn’t an answer at all. It neither confirms nor denies the images: and in them the boy, the beautiful boy Vanessa spoke of, is replaced with him, and it is he who has Big Strong Ethan, Ethan who could always beat him in a fight, Ethan who could snap him like twigs, at his mercy. In these images, Ethan surrenders so prettily.

Victor swallows again and says “no.”

It’s wrong to want Ethan; they’re brothers now.


End file.
